Softball preps for first Big East Tourney appearance

Senior second baseman Francesca DiMaria has been to the Big East Softball Tournament before,… Senior second baseman Francesca DiMaria has been to the Big East Softball Tournament before, usually just to collect individual awards and then watch her opponents compete for the championship.

This time, though, she’ll have some company on the trip — her teammates.

DiMaria and the rest of the Panthers (31-26 overall, 10-12 Big East) will travel to the Belleville Softball Complex in South Bend, Ind., today as they prepare for the program’s first-ever appearance in the Big East Conference Tournament.

“It’s a completely different feeling than before,” DiMaria said. “While it’s always nice to get that call from coach that you’ve won an award, the team success means so much more. The individual awards are nice but going there as a team means so much more.”

The inaugural berth is a fitting end to what has been an historic season for head coach Michelle Phalen’s team.

“We worked hard to get to this point and we are now one step closer to a Big East championship for this program,” Phalen said. “We are thrilled to be appearing in and competing for our first ever Big East championship. Pitt softball has set numerous records and made huge gains this season and this is another tremendous result of this team’s hard work.”

Pitt set nine team records this season, including wins in a season (31), conference wins (10) hits (376), batting average (.259), RBIs (206), triples (13), runs (233), stolen bases (84) and walks (152). The Panthers also won six straight road games at one point, doubling the previous record.

Still, after closing out their conference season with weekend splits against Connecticut and Providence, the Panthers had to wait a few days before the conference formally announced that Pitt (seeded No. 7 in the tournament) would make the eight-team field.

“What we initially thought was that we were in after the weekend split, but we had to wait for the Big East to work out possible scenarios over the weekend so we were kind of in limbo for a bit,” Phalen said. “I was relieved because we could mentally start to prepare.”

Junior outfielder Joey Scarf echoed her coach’s sentiments.

“It was actually a big relief because we had been working so hard all season and it was nice to see that it was actually going to pay off and that we would have a spot in the tournament,” she said.

“Of the four years I have been here, this team gets along the best and the team chemistry is great,” senior captain Jessica Thomas said. “We’ve had a few up and down years but I’m glad that this one gets the chance to play in the tournament. It’s very exciting.”

Most figured that the Panthers would make it into the tournament after early sweeps of Seton Hall, Rutgers and Villanova paved the way for a sizzling 7-1 start to Big East play. A few tough weekends against the Big East’s best, though, saw the team suffer two separate four-game conference losing streaks.

“The thing is we really were playing good ball but we didn’t have timely hitting and we weren’t able to push past,” Phalen said of her team’s difficult stretch.

Losing streaks in the middle of the season might get to a team like Pitt, which came only one win away from making the tournament a year ago. Those losses, however, all came to teams in the top five in the conference and were during a stretch where several players acknowledged that the team was not playing its best.

“Last year was last year,” DiMaria, the other co-captain, said. “We didn’t think about that at all, we just had to get back to the basics and playing the way we were before. The main thing was to stay positive.”

“After tough losses you have to get right to what’s next and move forward,” Scarf said. “I think we just kept on going. We just worked harder, had more intense practices and cleared our heads and talked it out.”

Two of those touch losses came at the hands of South Florida, the Panthers’ first-round opponent tomorrow afternoon. The No.25-ranked Bulls (47-22, 17-3) used stellar pitching and a strong short game to push past the Panthers 5-0 and 8-0 in an April 21 doubleheader.

Pitching has kept South Florida near the top of the conference standings all season. Headlining the pitching unit is freshman Cristi Ecks, who leads the team in innings pitched (203), ERA (1.03) and saves (five). Ecks tossed all five innings in the 8-0 win over Pitt in April, surrendering only three hits and one walk while striking out four.

Despite the losses over that difficult April weekend, Phalen and her players aren’t afraid of the Bulls. All of them believe that they can play with South Florida, pointing to an extra-innings win over South Florida two years ago as proof.

“I think that [the girls] are at a point where we haven’t shown what we are capable of over the last few weeks and they are ready to go out and show South Florida that we are a better team than when we played them a few weeks ago,” she said.

Several of the players were quick to label the Panthers as severe underdogs, not only because of the seeding, but on the basis that they don’t feel the Bulls will be expecting much of a challenge from a team making its first postseason appearance

“I think we are capable of competing with everybody and it’s really anybody’s tournament,” Thomas said. “I don’t see why we can’t make the championship game.”

While the championship game is still a bit away and is cluttered with many roadblocks — namely Notre Dame, a possible second-round opponent, should Pitt get past the Bulls — the Panthers aren’t too concerned. They aren’t scared of any team in the field and they are ready to show that when the first pitch is thrown out tomorrow at 4 p.m.

“I know we can play with any of these teams,” Phalen said confidently.